I was a tutor of a fourth grade elementary student, Joyce, a lovely and sweet girl. She also goes to the language school, but she learns English slowly. In addition, her mom wants her to learn English happily but shoulder too much pressure. So I just help her review her lessons and prepare for her exams.
Actually, Joyce’s mom treats her as a little princess. She only wants her grades on average in the class. Recently I help her review some basic grammar: present tense, relation of verb and adverb or be verb and verb and so on which she have learned long time ago. I try to review them so often. But when the next time for class, she always says she forgot or she did not learn those words before.
On the other hand, we have class once a week. I go to her place on Friday at 7 pm. During the class, if she wants to shirk some questions she had learned but she forgot, she would yawn all the time and try to change to some interesting topics happened at school. Once I tried to push her to concentrate in class, her attitude was unwilling and unhappy obviously.
How can I get along with her?
What methods can I help her with her English learning? :?: :?: :?:

I had the same situation with yours as well, always kept repeating the same thing I had taught, and thats really annoyed me! Yes, sometimes kids they try to talk about something else or things happened in school, maybe they just want have someone to share or they just don't like be "in class." you know what I mean. but I think there are two ways you can do,

1. Tell your student when can you be her "friend" and when do you need to be a "taugh teacher." At least you make her understand "the different situation should do different thing."

2.Every time in class you still try to spare some time, like 10 or 15 minutes for review, after the review you can have quiz right away, so that she wont have an excuse to say she forgot again. If unforunately she forgot "again", then you can prepare some "important notes", then every time you review the same things, one day she will remember because she would be "tired of forgetting!"

It's incredibly difficult for anyone to concentrate on grammar drills at 7pm on a Friday evening; that's just a sad fact of life.

However, the good news is that you don't necessarily have to do grammar drills (at least, not exclusively) in order to help your student learn. She sounds like she is quite motivated to communicate with you. That's wonderful! You can use that motivation to achieve your goals with her.

For instance, say you are practicing the simple past tense. First review the rules briefly, then ask her to use the simple past tense to tell you about a TV show she recently saw, or about what she and her friends did after school. If she needs more motivation, take score: every time she uses the past tense correctly in an obligatory context, give her one point. Every time she doesn't use it correctly in an obligatory context, take a point away. Give rewards for a certain number of points.

You can use this type of review-then-chat teaching technique for all sorts of grammatical structures. Then, assign some brief writing homework--working on the same grammar point, of course-- to be done over the next week so the lesson isn't forgotten immediately. I've also had some students who just never did written homework, and for them I assigned talking homework with a partner, preferably a parent or someone else responsible who would sign to verify that the homework was done.

I really really appreciate your suggestions!!!
Actually, she loves chocolate and candy very much. That will make the grammatical class more fun!!!
As to the homework, I tried to give her some practices once, but she did not do it. She said she was busy. She should go to the cram school after school until her parents pick her up at 7:30 every day. So when she goest home, she is exaulted.......for a elementary student, that 's really tired.
That's why I did not offer her any homework after class!!!!
I would take the motivated deomstration to teach her. She is a lovely and active girl, so it must be workful!!!
I want to thank you again!!!

I agree that most of students are very busy now due to the intense competition. I think you can choose to give kids some homework "in class." Try to give them some works for practicing in class, one hand, they don'e have to spare more time "being busy" after class, another hand, they have chances to practice and they won't have excuses to say "Sorry! I dont have time to do the homework."

I think its a good try for kids homework problem. Besides its more effecient for your teaching, kids can ask you when they meet difficulties when they do the homework as well.

I didn’t confront such situation before, but I have the experience to teach children English. In my experience, I set a clear boundary between childern and me at first time. Once children considered you as a too nice sister or brother, it is impossible for you to push them do anything. In your case, I think your student is not truly love English; therefore, to evoke her interest in learning English is very important. Once she loves English, there is no way she doesn’t want to learn more.

Hi~~~daer Vera...
Joyce is a pricess in her mother's eye, a well learned pricess. That she goes to the language school and has a tutor at the same should have make her English quite well. However, the situation isn't so. what is the problem??

I think the reason lies in her attitude to face English since her mother puts her in a good surroundings. She may look English as a object that waste her playing time and for what her mother may chide her, putting pressure on her.

So, you may play a game or sing songs in the time you meet, and maybe she will fall in love with it. And one day you may tell her that English is a way for us to learn many other funny exercise, but not just to take exams.